The names behind the event are awfully impressive: Jose Andres, Daniel Boulud, Wylie Dufresne, Marcus Samuelsson and even the legendary Jean-Georges Vongerichten, just to name a few. These celebrity chefs are household names. They’re also part of a major movement in the advancement of restaurants, known as StarChefs.

Each year StarChefs holds its annual International Chefs Congress in New York City. Now in its 12th year, the event is bigger and better than ever before, featuring more than 1,500 of the world’s best chefs and restauranteurs who packed into the Brooklyn Expo Center at the end of October to demonstrate their latest creations and techniques and learn more about the most advanced new products on the market. We are proud to say that MarketMan was one of the only technology vendors asked to participate in this year’s event!

The numbers are in, and they are impressive: an estimated 108 million shoppers showed their support for small businesses across the country on November 25, otherwise known as Small Business Saturday. This year, spending on Small Business Saturday topped $12.9 billion at independently owned businesses nationwide. Of those small businesses, 41% were restaurants, bars and pubs–by far the highest segment–with clothing and accessory stores, food stores and coffee shops rounding out the list at 24%, 23% and 22%, respectively.

MarketMan’s newest integration is a game-changer for restaurants looking to streamline their back-of-house management (and, which restaurant operators aren’t?). With the announcement of a new partnership with the Square point-of-sale (POS) platform, MarketMan provides an even more streamlined and innovative approach to inventory management. A recent case study released in conjunction with Square, US Foods and Ohio-based restaurant chain Mr. Chicken clearly shows why MarketMan has proven to be a simple and cost effective solution to help growing restaurant chains better predict and control inventory costs, reduce food waste, and ultimately, increase their bottom line profits.